(Eagle News) – “No one is above the law and the Constitution, not even a Chief Justice who took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution and obey the laws of the land.”
Thus said the 153-page decision of Supreme Court penned by Associate Justice Noel Tijam that was concurred in by seven other justices, ousting and effectively disqualifying Maria Lourdes Sereno as Chief Justice on Friday, May 11 – a first in the history of the high court.
At the start of the majority decision, it even cited a biblical verse, Proverbs 10:9” “Whoever walks in integrity and with moral character walks securely, but he who takes a crooked way will be discovered and punished.”
“In our jurisdiction, one cannot be qualified to be a member of the Judiciary, lacking such mandatory requirement of ‘proven integrity.’ Inevitably, an appointee to the position of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court must be the exemplar of honesty, probity and integrity,” the decision read.
The high court, voting 8-6, favored the petition for quo warranto filed by the Office of the Solicitor General that said that Sereno was ineligible to hold the office of the Chief Justice in the first place after failing to comply with the requirements for Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN).
In the decision, the Court ruled that it has “original jurisdiction” over the quo warranto case citing Section 5, Article VIII of the Constitution.
-SC: Constitution allows quo warranto vs impeachable officer-
While Sereno argued that she can only be removed by impeachment, the SC’s majority decision said that the “tenor” of Section 2, Article XI of the Constitution “allows the institution of a quo warranto action against an impeachable officer.”
“The provision uses the permissive term ‘may’ which in statutory construction, denotes discretion and cannot be construed as having a mandatory effect,” it said.
“To subscribe to the view that appointments or election of impeachable officers are outside judicial review is to cleanse their appointments or election of any possible defect pertaining to the Constitutionally-prescribed qualifications which cannot otherwise be raised in an impeachment proceeding,” it said.
At the heart of the quo warranto case is Sereno’s failure to file the required SALNs during the period that she served as faculty of the University of the Philippines College of Law from 1986 to 2006.
The high court even prepared a tabular form of the SALNs which Sereno had failed to submit while she was under government employment.
While Sereno insisted that she can only be removed via impeachment, the SC, in its majority decision, said Sereno’s argument was “misplaced.”
“The term ‘quo warranto’ is Latin for ‘by what authority.’ Therefore, as the name suggests, quo warranto is a writ of inquiry. It determines whether an individual has the legal right to hold the public office he or she occupies,” the Court’s majority decision said.
It stressed that “public office is a public trust.”
“Thus, the people have the right to have only qualified individuals appointed to public office,” the SC’s majority decision said.
“The essence of quo warranto is to protect the body politic from the usurpation of public office and to ensure that government authority is entrusted only to qualified individuals.”
“Reason therefore dictates that quo warranto should be an available remedy to question the legality of appointments especially of impeachable officers considering that they occupy some of the highest ranking offices in the land and are capable of wielding vast power and influence on matters of law and policy,” it said.
-No violation of separation of powers-
It said that the high court’s “exercise of its jurisdiction over a quo warranto petition will not violate the doctrine of separation of powers.”
At the same time, it said that “quo warranto and impeachment can proceed independently and simultaneously.”
-Impeachment and quo warranto can proceed simultaneously- SC
The SC’s 153-page decision penned by Justice Tijam said that quo warranto and impeachment are “not mutually exclusive remedies and may even proceed simultaneously.”
“The existence of other remedies against the usurper does not prevent the State from commencng a quo warranto proceeding,” the high court explained.
The high court’s majority decision explained why the tribunal proceeded with the quo warranto case against Sereno, even as an impeachment trial against Sereno before the Senate was a possibility.
“As an impeachment court, the Senate’s jurisdiction and the effect of its pronouncement is as limited under the Constitution – it cannot rule on the constitutionality of an appointment of a Member of the Supreme Court with jurisprudential binding effect because rulings of the impeachment court, being a political rather than a judicial body, do not form part of the laws of the land.”
The decision also threatened to penalize Sereno for violating the rule on subjudice and the Code of Professional Responsibility and the Code of Judicial Conduct.
It “ordered” Sereno to explain or “show cause” within 10 days from her receipt of the decision why she should not be sanctioned for these violations and “for casting aspersions and ill motives to the members of the Supreme Court.”
Those who voted in favor of removing Sereno through the quo warranto petition were Associate Justices Diosdado Peralta, Teresita Leonardo De Castro, Lucas Bersamin, Samiel Martires, Francis Jardeleza, Alexander Gesmundo, Andres Reyes, and Noel Tijam who penned the SC decision.
Those who dissented were Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, and Associate Justices Marvic Leonen, Mark del Castillo, Alfredo Benjamin Caguioa, Presbitero Velasco Jr., and Estela Perlas-Bernabe.
(Eagle News Service)